On Monday’s Situation Room, Suzanne Malveaux became the latest CNN personality to use the offensive “teabagger” label to describe opponents of ObamaCare. Malveaux asked senior political analyst Gloria Borger, “Do we expect to see the kinds of big rallies and...the circus atmosphere that we saw...over the summer when you were talking about controversial policy, ‘teabaggers’ and all that other thing?” [audio clip available here]
The CNN anchor and correspondent, serving a substitute for the vacationing Wolf Blitzer, questioned Borger about the upcoming battle over health care “reform” in the Senate, after a 60-39 vote over the weekend to begin debate over the Democrats’ bill. Her use of the vulgar term came 14 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour:
SUZANNE MALVEAUX: Now, the holidays are coming up. Do we expect to see the kinds of big rallies and the kind of- some of the theatrics, the circus atmosphere that we saw the last go-round over the summer when you were talking about controversial policy-
GLORIA BORGER: No-
MALVEAUX: ‘Teabaggers’ and all that other thing?
BORGER: Yeah-MALVEAUX: Do you think we’ll see something equivalent to that?
BORGER: You know, it’s my experience that over the holidays, people like to eat and shop more than they like to do anything else (Malveaux laughs), but that's why, Suzanne, you really see that the Democrats want to get a bill out of the Senate, at least, before the Christmas holidays. That may mean they’re here until New Year’s, or- but they don’t want to leave a big gap for any kind of a recess where the opposition, of course, could get stoked. But it’s going to be a long slog between getting it out of the Senate and getting a compromise version of this bill-
MALVEAUX: Sure-
BORGER: Out of any conference committee between the House and the Senate.
Malveaux’s colleague, Anderson Cooper, infamously referenced “teabagging” during a segment with David Gergen back in April 2009. More recently, CNN’s senior political correspondent Candy Crowley labeled some of the supporters of Conservative Party of New York candidate Doug Hoffman as “tea bag partyers” on the November 2 edition of The Situation Room.
